Brann filled the doorway like a plug. He set his knuckles on the lintel and tapped twice, slow, like someone knocking on a table to quiet a room. Behind him stood the thin man with the ring and another with a coat too big across the shoulders. A fourth hung back with a mallet by his leg as if he'd forgotten to put it down after work. No one carried a writ in their hand now.
Ryo didn't step away. He kept one hand on the back of the door and the other at his side. The line of salt lay clean across the sill. The faint ash he'd laid outside held those morning boot marks and nothing new. The stew on the hearth breathed its slow breath. He could see Anna by the bar from the corner of his eye, sleeves rolled, ladle upright, waiting for a word. Above, the ladder creaked; Ren's boots paced the eaves; Toller's bare feet pattered quick and sure.
Brann's eyes took in the room without appearing to move. He let his gaze touch the broom leaning against the bar, the clean mugs, the way the floor didn't shine because water hadn't been spilled and left to dry in streaks. He smiled the way a man smiles in a bad dream he means to wake from by force.
"Evening," Brann said. "I told my boy to say we'd keep it short. I meant it. We'll act like neighbors and you'll act like a man who knows where he is. First jug comes to me. Two coppers a day to the road. I'll taste what you brew and I'll keep the wrong sorts from putting their knives in your tables when you've just sanded them."
"I'm not licensed to pour," Ryo said. He kept his voice level and conversational, like he was telling a man what the market charged for salt. "I won't sell you drink today. I won't give you a jug and pretend it isn't selling. The stew is for the roofers. If you want to talk about coin, we'll do it at Mara's table with a paper on it. If you show me a writ with a countersign and a stamp she recognizes, I'll write your name in my book and the amount beside it and I'll pay at her table, not here."
Brann's smile thinned. "You're tidy," he said. "The tidy ones always think paper keeps doors shut."
"Paper keeps arguments from drowning people," Ryo said. "So do doors. I pick the tools that work."
Brann set one boot forward until the toe touched the salt. He didn't scuff it, he just let the leather rest there as if to say the line wasn't real. He lifted his chin a fraction.
"Hospitality is a law," he said. "You open the door, you offer the guest a cup. It makes peace. It keeps knives where they belong. You can't just make your own rules because you like your lines neat. We know a little about law too."
"I offer a cup to guests," Ryo said. "I don't open my door to collectors who mark thresholds with blood in the dark. I don't pour when pouring breaks my license. I don't move a coin without a witness. If you want a cup for your throat, you sit at Mara's table and we'll write what you owe and what I owe. If you want to test if I'll break my own rules the first time someone says the word hospitality at me, the answer is no."
The man with the mallet made a small, eager sound he didn't know had come out of his mouth. The thin man with the ring shifted to the right to see Anna. Brann didn't look away from Ryo. He let his boot rock once on the salt and then took it back an inch, not out of respect, just to make sure he didn't push the line without deciding to.
"Bring your book," Brann said softly. "Let's start the writing down. Write my name. It's Brann. Not hard to spell. Put it under 'friends of the house' and say: one jug for the road."
"I'll write your name in my book when we're at Mara's," Ryo said. "If you want to be a friend of this house, don't bring blood to the door before you knock."
Brann's eyes narrowed in a way that said he had heard that and put it somewhere he didn't like. He lifted his hand from the lintel and flipped it, wrist loose, like he was about to slap a fly. He put his palm forward and reached, not fast, just steady, to set it on the door and push.
Ryo slid the door a hand's breadth toward him and down. The latch still clear, the bar within reach. Brann's palm met the beveled edge instead of the flat. His fingers curled reflexively to grip. Ryo let that happen. He set his thumb gently against Brann's thumb joint and pressed, not sharp, just relentless, the way he had watched a blacksmith seat a shoe with a hammer—no rage, only placement. The joint shifted. The hand opened. Ryo kept hold of two fingers and rolled them. Brann's shoulder committed before his mind did; the body always goes where the hand goes. Ryo stepped back half a pace and drew Brann's hand outward and down across the line, keeping the motion small and close. Brann took a step he hadn't chosen, boot scuffing the salt. The next step had to follow. Ryo let the hand go at the exact moment weight transferred, and Brann's own boot found the ash beyond the sill and slid a fraction. He caught himself and straightened with a sharp breath.
Anna hadn't moved. Ren's boots paused above, then resumed. Toller didn't shout. The mallet man took a half-step forward and lifted the handle.
Ryo raised his right hand, palm out, level with his chest, like he was steadying a wobbly table. "Don't," he said to the mallet man. "You lift that and you will drop it on your own toes before you take one step. Then you'll leave it there and limp."
The mallet man looked at Brann's hand, at the small flush of color along the thumb, at the calm way Ryo stood with one hand on the door and the other hanging easy. He lowered the handle an inch. He didn't put it down.
Brann flexed his fingers and found the joint tender. His face didn't change much. He looked at his hand like it belonged to a stranger who had done a poor job. When he spoke again, his voice had gotten quieter.
"You think you can close a door in my face," he said. "You think you can say the word no and have it hold like a nail. Men say no to me and then they say yes later because they don't like the sound the night makes when it's full of boots."
Ryo didn't look away. "If you want to test the night," he said, "come back with a writ and a witness and stand at Mara's table. If you step over that line without being invited, you are not a guest. If you put a hand on a worker here, I take it off the wrist and put it on the floor and you can pick it up if you like the shape it makes there."
The thin man with the ring smiled at Anna as if he had been left for too long without anything to do and had picked the nearest thing to pull. "You poured for the boy on the roof," he said to Ryo. "I saw him stand with a bowl. You poured and you said you won't pour. That's a lie, and lying makes new laws. Pour for us or pour for no one."
Ryo didn't look at him. "You stand in my doorway arguing about bowls while men on a roof put reed on a house you'll want to drink in when it rains," he said. "The stew is food for workers. There's no law against a man feeding the men keeping his roof from becoming a pond. If you want a bowl for work, climb the ladder. If you want a bowl for coin, come back when the village writes a license."
The mallet man shifted again. It wasn't a big shift. Just the little tell a body makes when it thinks it might be time to do something it's been thinking about for a while and is waiting for permission for. He moved his eyes to Anna again. That was the tell Ryo watched hardest.
"Anna," Ryo said, not turning his head. "Stay behind the bar. If you need to leave, go through the back and keep walking until you're at Mara's. Don't try to listen at the corner."
"I'm not leaving you with them," she said from a low place in her throat. It wasn't defiance. It was something that had gotten stiff. "But I'll do what you say."
Brann took another inch of space forward and the toe of his boot pressed the salt. "You're new here," he said. "You think your rules matter because you written them in your book. I've been here a year. I know how many men pull nets and how many drink in the morning. I know who owes the miller and who slacks their pitch with dung and lies about it. I know which boy sleeps in the loft above the smokehouse and which woman cries when she has to count coppers and comes up short. You're not going to stand here and pretend you're stronger than the road. The road goes where the lord points. I take the coin to pay for that pointing."
"Then the lord can point at Mara's table," Ryo said. "I won't be counted at a doorway. If you break the door to make your point, I'll fix it and then we'll still go to Mara."
Brann lifted his hand again as if to set it on the door and test the joint. Ryo didn't take hold this time. He let Brann feel the wood, the clean latch, the bar set within reach on the pegs. He let him notice the broom head wet and heavy with a brick tied across it to keep the bristles from spreading while it dried. He let him see the pot on the hearth and the sanded part of the bar where a hundred hands had rested and would again.
"Tomorrow," Brann said. "Noon. You'll bring your book to the shrine and you'll write my name in it and you'll write the coin beside it. If you don't, I'll test whether your bar keeps a door shut when a mallet hits it."
"Tomorrow," Ryo said. "Noon. I'll be at Mara's table with my book and the jar with your mark in it. If you're at the shrine with a mallet, you'll be alone and the priest will tell you to take your noise to another door. If you want to test the bar now, we can test it, and when it holds, you can take your hammer to the mill and tell the wheel to stop turning."
The mallet man breathed harder at the word hammer as if someone had complimented his posture. Brann flicked two fingers at him without looking. The mallet dropped a degree. The thin man with the ring looked disappointed like a dog kept on a leash in front of a busy yard.
Ren shifted above in a way that said he was near the eave. He called down without raising his voice. "We're laying the last dry line," he said, like the news of their own progress mattered as much as the men in the doorway. "We'll need quiet for a minute if you want your roof to sit straight."
Brann didn't look up. He still had his hand on the door. He took it away and examined his thumb again. He seemed to decide to put the anger somewhere deep for later, to keep it from spoiling whatever he meant to do next.
"Tomorrow," he said again. He let the word sit like a coin on a table. "You write in your book. You bring it. Make sure the ink dries. I don't like smears."
"I don't either," Ryo said.
Brann's smile came back. It wasn't wider. It had more teeth in it. He stepped back from the line. He looked down at the salt the way a man looks at a dog that has chosen the wrong place to lie and decides not to kick it because someone else is watching. He turned. The others turned when he did. The mallet man walked backward two steps, licking his lip as if he planned to remember the taste of the room. The thin man's ring clicked against the frame once. Then they were gone, steps crunching on the ash he had laid, leaving prints he could count.
Ryo watched the door a full three breaths after they left. He set the bar back across and lifted and lowered it once to feel the weight. He put the broom down from its drying place and checked the tie, then set it back. He walked to the hearth and tasted the stew and didn't add anything to it because it didn't need anything.
Anna exhaled a breath she had been holding since the first tap. It came out shaky and hot. She put the ladle down with care and set both hands on the bar to steady them.
"I thought he'd make you bleed a little just to say he could," she said. "I've seen that done. It costs nothing and buys a story. I don't know why he didn't."
Ryo looked at the line of salt, at the prints, at the shallow dent where Brann's heel had struck when his hand rolled him across. "He wants tomorrow," Ryo said. "He thinks he wins more when there are benches and ears. He wants to make a speech with other people's eyes on him. If he breaks a door today, he comes to the table tomorrow and everyone pretends they didn't see splinters on his coat."
Anna made a low sound that agreed and didn't like agreeing.
"Do you want me to go to Mara now and tell her," she asked, "or do I keep my hands under hot water and finish the mugs?"
"Finish what's in your hands," Ryo said. "Toller."
The boy dropped from the ladder to the sill like a cat and swung inside without touching the salt. He was grinning despite himself because he had watched a thing and would have something to say later that would make him feel big.
"Run to Mara," Ryo said calmly. "Tell her Brann says noon at the shrine and that I said: table, not shrine. Tell her I'll bring the jar and my book. Ask her if she wants the men with white shirts near a roof that still has wet pitch on it. Use her words when you come back."
Toller nodded so fast his hair shook. He darted out and around the salt line like it was a snake and vanished into the lane.
Ren climbed down slow, rung by rung. He landed, flexed his hands, and looked at the line at the eave where new reed lay. He gave the roof a small nod as if to a mule that had pulled well. Then he looked at Ryo.
"You set your rule," Ren said. "You said it once and didn't say it again. That holds better than shouting it ten times. He'll be back with a crowd because he thinks crowds make rules. He might be right if the crowd is only him and his men. He's wrong if Mara sits and writes. She hates writing times that aren't on the hour."
Ryo poured him a bowl without asking if he wanted one. Ren ate standing up, eyes on the roofline through the window.
"That thumb," Ren added without looking at Ryo's face. "You rolled it like a man who knows where a body comes apart. Don't do it twice the same way. He'll come ready for that. Do the other one next time or step on his toes. Men who wear white shirts buy soft shoes."
"I'd rather do none," Ryo said. "But I'll do what I need to when I need to."
Anna took bowls to the back to wash. Her hands had stopped shaking. The noise of water and the sound of a spoon tapped to a rim put the room back in its proper order. Ryo wrote three lines in his book: Brann—door—no writ—noon—shrine. Ren read upside down because that's what men who had taught themselves did, then nodded and went out to check his ropes.
For a moment, Ryo stood with his hand on the bar and felt his heartbeat settle into the old rhythm that some people call calm and some call the place where everything fits. Something along the edge of thought fell into place without a word attached, like the way a latch sits right when the wood isn't warped.
House Rule: set.
He let it go. He wiped the inside of the ladle so it wouldn't spot. He put a slice of bread on a plate and ate it while standing where he could see the door and the window and the ladder. He counted the breaths between the spoon taps and the creaks above. He let the day go on.
Toller came back before the shadow of the chimney had crossed the center of the room. He didn't burst in. He stopped at the line like he had taken the measure of the salt and respected it as a thing that belonged there. He held in his mouth the words he wanted to throw, then set them out one by one.
"Mara says there is no meeting at the shrine," Toller said. "She says: we do these things at my table. She says: if Brann wants a crowd he can go shout at the broken capstone and the frogs. She says: bring the jar. Bring your book. She says: the steward from Lord Gareth is in the village already. He came by the north road just now with two men and a stamp box. He's at the goose house because he likes the bread. Mara sent Joss to fetch the priest so nobody can squeal later that the gods weren't shown a chair. She told me to tell you to come now if you want your words read into the ledger before Brann opens his mouth."
Ryo felt the room tilt a half degree, the way a floor does when a barrel is rolled across it in the wrong spot and everything else has to adjust. He set the ladle down. He wiped his hands. He picked up the jar with the print and his book and slid them into the cloth bag and tied the knot twice, not once.
"Anna," he said.
She looked up from the sink. "I heard," she said. "Go. I'll keep the door shut and the latch set. Ren and Toller will be on the roof. If someone I don't like looks at the door too hard, I'll go out the back and to Mara."
"Good," Ryo said. He stood for a heartbeat with his palm on the door, feeling how it had learned his hand. He looked at the salt and at the scrubbed threshold and at the beam with the stain he would pitch tomorrow. He lifted the bar and slid the latch.
He stepped into the lane with the jar under his arm and the book in his bag—and stopped. The steward from Lord Gareth stood by the posting board with his stamp box open and a quill in his hand. He was younger than Ryo had pictured and clean-shaven, with city-soft fingers and a guard's sword at his back that he didn't know how to wear. He was tacking up a fresh notice, careful and deliberate. At the top in a neat, practiced script it read: By Order of Gareth, Lord of the Millroads: Levy of Road Guardianship to be Collected from Merchants of Drink in Low Marsh, effective immediately. Countersign to follow.